The Philosopher's Stone Page #3

The Philosopher's Stone is a mystical story by Hans Christian Andersen about a philosopher in search of a powerful mythical stone that is said to hold the power to transform any metal into gold and grant eternal life. The journey is complex with several moral dilemmas which highlight Andersen's themes of greed, human nature, and the quest for eternal life.

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became so bad for the Hearer that he thrust his fingers into his ears.
Still, he could hear false notes and bad singing, gossip and idle
words, scandal and slander, groaning and moaning, without and
within. "Heaven help us!" He thrust his fingers farther and farther
into his ears, till at last the drums burst. And now he could hear
nothing more of the true, the beautiful, and the good; for his hearing
was to have been the means by which he hoped to acquire his knowledge.
He became silent and suspicious, and at last trusted no one, not
even himself, and no longer hoping to find and bring home the costly
jewel, he gave it up, and gave himself up too, which was worse than
all.

The birds in their flight towards the east, carried the tidings,
and the news reached the castle in the Tree of the Sun.

"I will try now," said the third brother; "I have a keen nose."
Now that was not a very elegant expression, but it was his way, and we
must take him as he was. He had a cheerful temper, and was, besides, a
real poet; he could make many things appear poetical, by the way in
which he spoke of them, and ideas struck him long before they occurred
to the minds of others. "I can smell," he would say; and he attributed
to the sense of smelling, which he possessed in a high degree, a great
power in the region of the beautiful. "I can smell," he would say,
"and many places are fragrant or beautiful according to the taste of
the frequenters. One man feels at home in the atmosphere of the
tavern, among the flaring tallow candles, and when the smell of
spirits mingles with the fumes of bad tobacco. Another prefers sitting
amidst the overpowering scent of jasmine, or perfuming himself with
scented olive oil. This man seeks the fresh sea breeze, while that one
climbs the lofty mountain-top, to look down upon the busy life in
miniature beneath him."

As he spoke in this way, it seemed as if he had already been out
in the world, as if he had already known and associated with man.
But this experience was intuitive--it was the poetry within him, a
gift from Heaven bestowed on him in his cradle. He bade farewell to
his parental roof in the Tree of the Sun, and departed on foot, from
the pleasant scenes that surrounded his home. Arrived at its confines,
he mounted on the back of an ostrich, which runs faster than a
horse, and afterwards, when he fell in with the wild swans, he swung
himself on the strongest of them, for he loved change, and away he
flew over the sea to distant lands, where there were great forests,
deep lakes, lofty mountains, and proud cities. Wherever he came it
seemed as if sunshine travelled with him across the fields, for
every flower, every bush, exhaled a renewed fragrance, as if conscious
that a friend and protector was near; one who understood them, and
knew their value. The stunted rose-bush shot forth twigs, unfolded its
leaves, and bore the most beautiful roses; every one could see it, and
even the black, slimy wood-snail noticed its beauty. "I will give my
seal to the flower," said the snail, "I have trailed my slime upon it,
I can do no more.

"Thus it always fares with the beautiful in this world," said
the poet. And he made a song upon it, and sung it after his own
fashion, but nobody listened. Then he gave a drummer twopence and a
peacock's feather, and composed a song for the drum, and the drummer
beat it through the streets of the town, and when the people heard
it they said, "That is a capital tune." The poet wrote many songs
about the true, the beautiful, and the good. His songs were listened
to in the tavern, where the tallow candles flared, in the fresh clover
field, in the forest, and on the high-seas; and it appeared as if this
brother was to be more fortunate than the other two.

But the evil spirit was angry at this, so he set to work with soot
and incense, which he can mix so artfully as to confuse an angel,
and how much more easily a poor poet. The evil one knew how to
manage such people. He so completely surrounded the poet with
incense that the man lost his head, forgot his mission and his home,
and at last lost himself and vanished in smoke.

But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and for three
days they sang not one song. The black wood-snail became blacker
still; not for grief, but for envy. "They should have offered me
incense," he said, "for it was I who gave him the idea of the most
famous of his songs--the drum song of 'The Way of the World;' and it
was I who spat at the rose; I can bring a witness to that fact."

But no tidings of all this reached the poet's home in India. The
birds had all been silent for three days, and when the time of
mourning was over, so deep had been their grief, that they had
forgotten for whom they wept. Such is the way of the world.

"Now I must go out into the world, and disappear like the rest,"
said the fourth brother. He was as good-tempered as the third, but
no poet, though he could be witty.

The two eldest had filled the castle with joyfulness, and now
the last brightness was going away. Sight and hearing have always been
considered two of the chief senses among men, and those which they
wish to keep bright; the other senses are looked upon as of less
importance.

But the younger son had a different opinion; he had cultivated his
taste in every way, and taste is very powerful. It rules over what
goes into the mouth, as well as over all which is presented to the
mind; and, consequently, this brother took upon himself to taste
everything stored up in bottles or jars; this he called the rough part
of his work. Every man's mind was to him as a vessel in which
something was concocting; every land a kind of mental kitchen.
"There are no delicacies here," he said; so he wished to go out into
the world to find something delicate to suit his taste. "Perhaps
fortune may be more favorable to me than it was to my brothers. I
shall start on my travels, but what conveyance shall I choose? Are air
balloons invented yet?" he asked of his father, who knew of all
inventions that had been made, or would be made.

Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships, nor
railways.

"Good," said he; "then I shall choose an air balloon; my father
knows how they are to be made and guided. Nobody has invented one yet,
and the people will believe that it is an aerial phantom. When I
have done with the balloon I shall burn it, and for this purpose,
you must give me a few pieces of another invention, which will come
next; I mean a few chemical matches."

He obtained what he wanted, and flew away. The birds accompanied
him farther than they had the other brothers. They were curious to
know how this flight would end. Many more of them came swooping
down; they thought it must be some new bird, and he soon had a
goodly company of followers. They came in clouds till the air became
darkened with birds as it was with the cloud of locusts over the
land of Egypt.

And now he was out in the wide world. The balloon descended over
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